Sunday, April 3, 2011

After my last post, I got some email asking me to add on mobile developer. I added some cloud jobs to the list. The results are below.

Job

Number of Jobs (Washington)

Salary (Average)

Blackberry Developer

241

$64K

iPhone Developer

650

$83K

Windows Phone developer

750

$81K

Android Developer

580

$85K

IOS Developer

198

$86K

Windows Mobile Developer

800

$83K

Azure Developer

704

$80K

Cloud Developer

2500

$88K

EC2 Developer

463

$87K

Solution Architect

3600

$98K

.Net Architect

790

$95K

One of the nice thing that Indeed.Com does is also cite how the rates compare nationally. In general I am seeing Washington jobs are 11% below the national average. If you are single, renting then you can likely increase your earnings by 20-30% by moving. Bellingham is 19% below the national average. So the average developer would earn $6K more (or $500/month) by working in Seattle. There are some folks whose jobs are moving to Vancouver, WA – this is 16% below, so they should expect a 3% salary increase (and don’t expect higher wages by crossing into Oregon.. it’s also at 16% below).

Moving for work or the money

The following are spot checks of ‘developer’’ salaries at various spots.

Location

From National Average

Washington

-11%

Bellingham, WA

-19%

Spokane, WA

-7%

Redmond, WA

-13%

Seattle, WA

-13%

Vancouver, WA / Portland OR

-16%

Boise, ID

-26%

Washington, DC

+12%

New York City

+21%

Phoenix, AZ

-18%

San Francisco

+20%

San Jose

+22%

Los Angeles

+3%

Reno, NV

-13%

Las Vegas

-16%

Vancouver, BC

+25%

Salt Lake City

-15%

Tampa, FL

-10%

Boston, MA

+10%

Alaska

-20%

North Dakota

-2%

South Dakota

-11%

Eugene, OR

-6%

Note: Vancouver BC is 25% above average, so some one with dual citizenship or a simple NAFTA work visa could be pulling in 44% more by commuting across the border from Whatcom. I was back channeled by someone who confirmed that there are low skilled folks doing that from Whatcom Co. now. Vancouver has a very high cost of living (average house price is over 1 million dollars – 5x Bellingham), so high wages. It is much easier for a US person to work in Canada than for a Canadian to work in Canada and live in the US (i.e. they would lose their BC Medical insurance etc).